Eadie S Commentary on Philippians (John Eadie)

《Eadie’s Commentary on Philippians》(John Eadie)

Commentator

John Eadie, He was born at Alva, in Stirlingshire. Having taken the arts curriculum at the University of Glasgow, he studied for the ministry at the Divinity Hall of the Secession Church, a dissenting body which, on its union a few years later with the Relief Church, adopted the title United Presbyterian.

In 1835 he became minister of the Cambridge Street Secession church in Glasgow, and for many years he was generally regarded as the leading representative of his denomination in Glasgow. As a preacher, though he was not eloquent, he was distinguished by good sense, earnestness and breadth of sympathy. In 1863 he removed with a portion of his congregation to a new church at Lansdowne Crescent.

In 1843 Eadie was appointed professor of biblical literature and hermeneutics in the Divinity Hall of the United Presbyterian body. He held this appointment along with his ministerial charge till the close of his life.

He received the degree of LL.D from Glasgow in 1844, and that of D.D. from St Andrews in 1850. He died at Glasgow on 3 June 1876. His library was bought and presented to the United Presbyterian College.

00 Introduction

THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS

Based on the Greek Text

By

John Eadie, D.D., LL.D.

Edited By

Rev. W. Young, M.A., Glasgow

CONTENTS

Preface

PREFACE

I HAVE little to add to the explanations made in the prefaces to my previous Commentaries on the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians. My object is still the same, however far I may fall short of realizing my own ideal—the development and illustration of the great apostle's thoughts, as they are expressed in his “weighty and powerful” letters. I humbly trust, that through a prolonged intimacy with his genius and style, my “profiting may appear to all.” For one forms a gradual and happy acquaintance with the peculiarities of his mind and language through careful and continuous observation and study; just as, had we lived in those early times, we should have grown familiar, from being much in his company, with his gait, voice, features, and dress. While he writes after the same general pattern as do the other sacred penmen of the New Testament, he has an unmistakeable type of his own, has his own favourite turns and points, his own recurring modes of putting an argument or giving edge to an appeal, of rebutting an objection, or going off by some sudden suggestion into a digression or parenthesis. While these special features may be recognized in all his epistles, they occur naturally in a letter like that to the Philippians, which is thrown off without any steady or definite aim, and where neither designed exposition nor reproof forms the burden of the communication.

The first question then is—What is the precise meaning of these sentences which the apostle wrote to the church in Philippi? or what is the sense which the church in that city would most naturally ascribe to them? It is to be supposed that they understood the document, and our effort is simply to place ourselves in their intellectual or spiritual position. We seek to comprehend the epistle by a careful analysis of its clauses, an anxious survey of the context, and a cautious comparison of similar idioms and usages; while through a profound sympathy with the writer, we seek to penetrate into his mind, and be carried along with him in those mental processes which, as they create the contents of the composition, impart to it its character and singularity. Our knowledge of Greek is perfect only in so far as it enables us to attach the same ideas to his words, which the apostle intended to convey by them. Every means must be employed to secure this unity of intelligence—every means which the progress of philological science places within our reach. At the same time, there is much which no grammatical law can fix, for the meaning of a particle is often as much a matter of aesthetics as of philology. The citation of a grammatical canon, in such cases, often proves only the possibility of one meaning out of many, but does not decide on any one with certainty; while reliance on such isolated proof is apt to degenerate into mere subtileness and refinement. The exegesis, or the ascertainment of the course of thought, must determine many minute questions, not against grammar, but in harmony with its spirit and laws. Contextual scrutiny and grammatical legislation have a happy reactionary influence, and any attempt to dissever them must tend to produce one-sided and unsatisfactory interpretation.

But the meaning of the epistle to those who originally received it being ascertained, the second question is—What are the value and signification of the same writing for us? What was simply personal between Paul and Philippi was so far temporary, though it does suggest lessons of permanent interest. But believing that the apostle was inspired, I accept his dogmatic and ethical teaching as divine truth— truth derived from God, and by God's own impulse and revelation communicated to the churches. This unreserved acceptance of scriptural truth is not at all hostile to the free spirit of scientific investigation. But it is wholly contrary to such a belief, and at variance with what I hold to be the origin and purpose of the New Testament, to regard the apostle's theology as made up of a series of Jewish theories, not always clearly developed or skilfully combined and adjusted; or to treat it as the speculations of an earnest and inquisitive mind, which occasionally lost itself among “deep things,” and mistook its modified and relative views for universal and absolute truth. What are called “St. Paul's opinions,” are conceived, worded, or presented by a conscious mind, according to its own habits and structure; but they are in themselves enunciations of divine truth, in and through the Spirit of God, for all ages; while the private matters mixed up with them show, that inspiration did not lift a man above what is natural, that divine guidance did not repress the instincts of a human temperament, check the genial outburst of emotion, or bar the record of mere impressions about future and unrevealed events, such as the alternatives of the apostle's own release or martyrdom.

With such convictions, and under this broad light, I have endeavoured to examine this epistle; and “my heart's desire and prayer to God is,” that He who “gave the Word,” and “hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true,” may bless this honest and earnest effort to expound a portion of the “lively oracles.” The love of the truth is homage to Him who shows Himself as the Spirit of Truth, while He is coming into His heritage as the Spirit of Love. On the reception and diffusion of the truth in no narrow spirit, and in no cold and crystallized formulas, but in all the breadth and living power with which Scripture contains and reveals it, depend what so many good men are now sighing for-the reunion of the churches and the conversion of the world.

John Eadie

13 LANSDOWNE CRESCENT, GLASGOW,

November 1858

THE LITERATURE OF THE EPISTLE

I. Philippi, and the Introduction of the Gospel

How the course of the apostle was divinely shaped, so that it brought him to Philippi, is stated in Acts 16:6-12 :—“Now, when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. And they, passing by Mysia, came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore, loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next. day to Neapolis; and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony: and we were in that city abiding certain days.” The apostle, during his second great missionary journey, had gone through a large portion of Asia Minor, and wished to extend his tour into proconsular Asia. But a curb, which he durst not resist, was laid upon him, though its precise object he might not be able at the moment to conjecture. The Holy Ghost, in forbidding him to preach in Asia, meant to turn his steps towards Europe. But he and his colleagues reached Mysia, and when they made an effort to pass into Bithynia, they were suddenly stopped on the frontier, for the “Spirit of Jesus” suffered them not to enter. This double check must have warned them of some ultimate purpose. Passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas, but not to labour, as they might have anticipated, in a city surrounded by the scenes of so many classical associations. The divine leading had so shut up their path as to bring them to the seaport from which they were to set sail for a new region, and for a novel enterprise. As Peter had been instructed and prepared by a vision to go to the house of a Roman soldier, so by a similar apparition Paul was beckoned across the AEgean sea to Europe. The low coasts of the Western world might be dimly seen by him under the setting sun; the spiritual wants of that country, still unvisited by any evangelist, must have pressed upon his mind; the anxious ponderings of the day prepared him for the vision of the night, when before him “there stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us.” He was now in a condition to respond to the prayer, for a narrow sea was the only barrier between him and the shores of northern Greece. The object of the vision could not be mistaken, and the supernatural limitations set to previous inland journeys would now be comprehended. The prediction had been verified in the apostle and his colleagues —“I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not, I will lead them in paths that they have not known;” and the promise, too, was now fulfilled—“I will make darkness light before thee, and crooked things straight,” for the vision so impressed them that they were “assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.” No time was lost-they loosed from Troas; the wind was fair-no weary tacking, no idle flapping of the sails in a calm; a steady southern breeze urged them through the current that rushes from the Dardanelles; they passed the island of Imbros, running “with a straight course to Samothracia,” and cast anchor the same night, in the smooth water of its northern shore. Half the voyage had been made, and next day, after skirting the isle of Thasos, they arrived at Neapolis, a harbour that seems to have stood in such a relation to Philippi as Ostia to Rome, Cenchrea to Corinth, Seleucia to Antioch, and Port-Glasgow, according to the original intentions of its founders, to Glasgow. When, at a subsequent period, Paul recrossed from Philippi to Troas, the voyage occupied five days; but now, “the King's business required haste,” and to speed it, “by His power He brought in the South Wind.” The historian briefly adds, “and from thence to Philippi;” that is, along a path ten miles in length, ascending first a low ridge of hills, and then leading down to the city and the great plain between Haemus and Pangaeus, where their last battle was fought and lost by the republican leaders of Rome. After a sojourn of “certain days,” the apostle and his companions went out to an oratory on the side of the river Gangites, and met with a few pious Jewish women and proselytes “which resorted thither.” This humble spot was the scene of Paul's first preaching in Europe; but the divine blessing was vouchsafed, and the heart of Lydia was opened as she listened “unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” It was “a man of Macedonia” that invited the apostle across into Europe; but his first convert was a woman of Thyatira, in Asia. The heart of a proselyte, who must have been an anxious inquirer before she relinquished Paganism, was in a more propitious state for such a change than either Jew or heathen, as it was neither fettered by the bigotry of the one, nor clouded by the ignorance of the other. The dispossession of a female slave, “who had a spirit of divination,” happened soon after; her rapacious and disappointed masters, a copartnery trading in fraud, misery, and souls, finding that the hope of their gain was gone, dragged Paul and Silas into the forum- εἰς τὴν ἀγοράν-before the magistrates, who, on hearing the charge, and without any judicial investigation, ordered the servants of God to be scourged, and then imprisoned. But their courage failed them not. On losing a battle in that neighbourhood, the vanquished warriors dared not to survive their defeat. The intriguing Cassius, “the last of the Romans,” hid himself in his tent, and in his panic ordered his freedman to strike. Brutus fell upon his sword, and his sullen and desperate spirit released itself by this self-inflicted wound. But Paul and Silas, unjustly condemned at the bidding of a mob, “thrust into the inner prison, and their feet made fast in the stocks,” fixed in that tormenting position, and their backs covered with “wounds and bruises and putrefying sores which had not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment”-these victims of wanton outrage did not bewail their fate, nor curse their oppressors, nor arraign a mysterious Providence, nor resolve to quit a service which brought them into such troubles, and desert a Master who had not thrown around them the shield of His protection, nor conclude that the vision at Troas had been a cunning and malignant lure to draw them on to Philippi, and to these indignities of stripes and a dungeon. No, “at midnight Paul and Silas, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name,” “prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them.” The prison was shaken, and their “bands were loosed;” the jailor and all his house believed in God, and “he and all his were baptized.” The praetors- οἱ στρατηγοί-in the morning sent an order to the lictors for the release of the prisoners; but Paul's assertion of his privilege as a Roman citizen, when reported to them, alarmed them; and knowing what a penalty they had incurred by their infraction of the Valerian and Porcian laws, they came in person, and urged the departure of the evangelists from the city. “They went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them and departed,” passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, and taking up their abode for a brief season in Thessalonica. Such were the apostle's experiences when he first trod the soil of Europe, and such the first conflict of Christianity with Hellenic heathenism and the savage caprice of Roman authority.

The apostle had not paused at Samothrace-an island renowned for its sanctity and its amulets, its gods and orgies, its Cybele and Cabiria-a scene where the mysteries of Eastern and Western superstition seem to have met and blended. Nor did he stop at Neapolis, the harbour of the Strymonic gulf, but he pressed on to Philippi; and the ground of his preference seems to be given in the statement —“which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony”- ἥτις ἐστὶν πρώτη τῆς μερίδος τῆς ΄ακεδονίας πόλις κολωνία. A reason is often assigned by the use of ἥτις- “inasmuch as it is.” The adjective πρώτη may admit of a political or a geographical meaning. Some have regarded it as signifying “chief,” much in the same way as it is rendered in our version. It cannot indeed mean the chief or capital city of the province, for that was Thessalonica; and if there existed at that period a minuter subdivision, the principal town was Amphipolis. Others look on the epithet as merely designating the first city that lay on the apostle's route; Neapolis being either regarded as only its seaport, or rather as a town belonging to Thrace, and not to Macedonia. Meyer, preceded by Grotius and followed by Baumgarten, advances another view, which joins πόλις and κολωνία—“the first colony and city,” and Philippi, in the Peutinger Tables, stands before Amphipolis. Without entering into any discussion of these opinions, we may only remark, that each of them furnishes a sufficient reason for the apostle's selection of Philippi as the spot of his first systematic labours in Europe. If it was the first city of the province that lay on his journey, then he naturally commenced to give it the help which the man of Macedonia had prayed for. If it was a chief city in that part, there was every inducement to fix upon it as the centre of farther operations; and if it enjoyed special advantages as a city and colony, then, its importance in itself, and in relation to other towns and districts, made it a fitting place both for present work and subsequent enterprise. You may either say that Paul went to Philippi as the first city on his path, for he had been summoned into Macedonia, and he could never think of passing the first city which he came to; or that he formally selected Philippi because of its rank, and because of its privileges as a Roman colony. If the apostle had taken this tour of his own accord, or as the result of plans previously matured; if he had traced out the itinerary of an evangelistic campaign before he set out, then the latter hypothesis would appear the more plausible; but if, as was the case, his purpose was hastily formed, and the general idea of traversing the province without any distinct regard to the order or arrangements of the visits, was suggested by the prayer of the representative man, then the first would appear to be the more natural and simple hypothesis.